EC HELP - Should I join Chemistry Club or Science Olympiad?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

Hello! I am a 9th grader interested in joining a science club. The ones they offer at my school are chemistry club and the Science Olympiad. The thing is…they fall on the same day! After choosing one, I plan to commit all 4 years to it. So, I need help in making the right decision. Chemistry club is great prep for future science courses/exams, but it doesn’t have competitions or anything to appeal for colleges. Science Olympiad has competitions and looks great on apps, but I don’t know if it will help me academically when I take future science courses. I’m absolutely torn between the two. Has anyone joined any? Please describe your experiences. Thank you.

Chemistry Club
PROS: focused on chemistry, great prep for AP Bio, great prep for SAT Bio Subject Test
CONS: does not have competitions

Science Olympiad
PROS: has competitions, looks great on college apps
CONS: not sure if this will help me academically (is the science learned here relevant to school science?)

2

To me, I would look less how it will help you academically and more at which group you think you would enjoy more. Do you have friends in either club? If so, you may want to pick the club where your friends are.

My kids both did Science Olympiad all 4 years of high school. They had a very good experience. They had Chemistry Olympiad rather than a club per se. My son did that as well my daughter (at least so far) has not.

You can also change your mind if you determine after this year or next that you want to join the other club. Meeting days/times may change at some point allowing you to join both.

3

Definitely Science Olympiad. It will DEFINITELY help you academically. I am doing Science Olympiad, and it has drastically increased my love for science. You can choose any event you want to do. Please note that just being in Science Olympiad is not what is great for the college apps, it is actually winning awards at state and national levels (regionals is really easy, and states also depends on what state you’re from).

If you are looking for events in Science Olympiad that help for AP and SAT prep, you could do Anatomy, Ecology, and Optics. Those are the three events that DIRECTLY relate to AP and SAT, however all the other events are really great for boosting your science and technology knowledge.

How competitive is your school’s Science Olympiad?

If you are interested in Science Olympiad I can offer you advice. (And I do feel highly qualified to do so ) O:-)

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saillakeerie - I don’t have any friends in any clubs, since I just moved. I am willing to make new ones in either club, though!
raventhemage - I honestly have no idea how competitive my school’s Science Olympiad is. I AM interested though, as everyone seems to be leaning towards that as a better option.

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@differencemaker if you don’t mind giving me the name of your school, and what state you are from, I can tell you how good your school has been in the past years, however, you don’t need to, since this is all private information and whatnot.

The most competitive states are (not in any particular order) North California, South California (CA is split because they’re such a big state), Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Illinois, Ohio, New York, and Michigan.

The least competitive states (as in you hardly try and you win first place) are: Hawaii, Alaska, Kentucky, North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho, Nevada, Montana, Wyoming, Oklahoma, New Hampshire, Mississippi, Arkansas, Utah, Connecticut, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Michigan. In these states, it’s generally very easy to qualify for nationals as long as the entire team works at it, and then you can just prepare your butt off for Nationals and maybe snag a medal or two.

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@differencemaker the Science Olympiad at my school is very close to each other and we have tons of inside jokes. I reside in a very competitive state, so it is a great achievement to make at to Nationals at all, but in 2016 we finally did :slight_smile:

I don’t know if your school’s Science Olympiad system lets you choose your events or not (our school does, but I’ve heard from other schools at nationals that they are randomly assigned events), and whether or not the leaders of your team are adult coaches, or elected captains. Either way, Science Olympiad is a great experience, and I can say honestly it’s the best thing that ever happened to me.

7

Hey, that’s not quite true for Tennessee.

(I’m just a bit salty bc my school’s team, despite being very committed and excited, didn’t even place at states. Carry on)

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Sorry, I was just basing it off of nationals data. The first place TN team placed 43rd.

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(Maybe we’re all just kinda meh in TN)

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@raventhemage I live in Massachusetts, and I’d tell you the school I go to if this thread wasn’t public xD. Science Olympiad sounds so awesome from the way you’re describing it. I really hope I do okay, especially since science isn’t my strongest subject.

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Don’t discount yourself because you think you’re not good at “science”; SciOly and school science are fairly different. If anything, SciOly (especially build events) is closer to actual science than school “science.”

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Go to the first meetings for each group. Talk to the returning members of each group and any teacher advisers. That will help give you a sense what each group is like. The same club can be very different at different schools. Some are more organized. Some are more serious. Some look more for social aspects than competition.

In Ohio, the same two high schools have dominated science olympiad the last 10 years or so. Finished 1 - 2 in every state tournament and won 5 national titles between them (I believe at least one year finishing 1 - 2 at the national tournament). Record for lowest (which means best) point total at a national tournament and state tournament. One of their middle schools won 5 or 6 straight national titles (and 6 or 7out of 7/8). Other high schools know going in they don’t really stand much of a chance going to the national tournament (last year I believe one of the dominant 2 finished 3rd at the state tournament but successfully lodged a protest for a point deduction and ended up 2nd). But that reality doesn’t mean other high schools in the state don’t have good teams and a very good experience in the program.

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@picats3141 - Thx for that. Do you know if SciOly science is harder than high school science? I’m not very good at high school science, so Sci Oly science, if it were harder, would kill me.

@saillakeerie - Thx for the info. What do you think I should look for in a club?

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@differencemaker I do not really have any experience with high school science (I’m in middle school) but I can say for a fact that middle school Scioly is LEVELS and LEVELS beyond normal science at school. As my coach “famously” puts it “It’s like you’re learning in depth high school material years before you need to.” As for high school, I know at least 10 people in C division (the high school division), and it is exponentially more difficult than B division (middle school division) so I’m assuming the level is more like perhaps AP level, except the information/build is more focused instead of AP classes covering larger topics.

Conventional school science classes are markedly different than Science Olympiad. If you excel at any of the following, you will make a great Scioly addition to your team: problem-solving, memorizing stuff, understanding concepts, building things, knowing random facts, describing things, planning things, taking notes, identifying things, and other stuff that I can’t think of. What is your strongest subject? Maybe I can suggest some events based on what you’re already good at.

Massachusetts is competitive. The first place team in MA for C division (Acton-Boxborough Regional H.S. ) placed 12th in the 2016 Nationals, which is considered VERY VERY GOOD, especially since it’s C division. That high school would be what my school would call “hyper-competitive”. In our school’s terms, this means it is very difficult to make it on the team, but once you do, that means you are good enough to place.

If you would like to become competitive in Science Olympiad (placing in states and invitationals, as I don’t think MA has a regional), you would have to reserve 30min-2hr per event per day, especially since I know MA is competitive, and the two MA invitationals are also very competitive (the MIT and Yale Invitational are very hard to place and do well in).

The top most competitive MA teams are (in order of competitive based on state competition results): Acton Boxborough, Newton South, Chelmsford, Newton North, Boston Latin, Winchester High

As for what to look for in a club, it really depends on what you prefer. I like to have a good balance of social aspects, with healthy competition, and a mutual understanding of the seriousness of the club.

15

OMG, they changed the Science Olympiad date to Thursday! Biology club is also on Thursday! What should I do?

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@differencemaker Is this the first meeting/informational meeting for Science Olympiad? If so, definitely go to that one and ask the captain/coach/officers of Biology club for what you missed/are missing at the meeting. If they are both informational meetings, pick and choose, but definitely be briefed for the one you missed.

17

You can’t join everything. Typically in high school activities become more involved and thus you need to narrow your interests a little. Pick a club or two and go with it. Try not to look back (at least for a year to give the clubs a true chance). If you do not like one or the other, look into other clubs next year. But talk with kids in those clubs to get a better idea what they are like before you join.

Talk with the science olympiad kids/advisers and see what the time commitment is. Typically team members spend time on their own working on their events (some individually and others with the other member or two on the team in a given event). So the meetings with the entire team may not be that important. Check with chemistry and biology clubs to see what their meetings are like. May be you can go to every other official meeting (and go to science Olympiad meeting on off weeks) and make up what you miss on your own. May well be overlaps in members of the various science clubs (same with math club).